Ebb Tide—Social Science History

By Tom Verso, H-History-and-Theory, 8 August 2006

Toynbee observed: “[by the eighteenth-century, prevailing
Western philosophy had] partitioned the Universe into [1] an orderly
province of non-human affairs in which ‘the laws of
Nature’ [prevailed and were knowable; e.g. Newton's Laws]
and [2] a chaotic province of human history which was dogmatically
declared to be [without knowable laws].” Historians (generally)
accepted this philosophy refusing to consider even the possibility of
knowable scientific lawful human behavior. However, many students of
human behavior did not concur with the historian's world view.
For example, Adam Smith's ‘The Wealth of Nations' in
1776 was predicated on the assumption that human economic behavior in
the aggregate (societies) was governed by knowable laws and the
science of economics was born. Throughout the nineteenth and
twentieth-centuries other social sciences (anthropology, sociology,
psychology, political science) predicated on similar ontological and
epistemological assumptions were born and developed. Meanwhile,
Toynbee notes, “as each new social science encroached on the
traditional domain of history…nineteenth and twentieth-century
Western historians still cling to the eighteenth-century philosophy
tenet that [social history was not lawful].”

It seems to me: by refusing to accept even the possibility of social
laws, generalizations or even classifications, historians (generally)
have ceded the most significant social behaviors (e.g. economic,
political, demographic, etc.) to the social sciences. In turn, they
redefined the essence of their craft as narrative writing placing
great emphasis on the unique (individuals and events) and writing
style. They held, for example, that knowledge of statistical means
and medians was not necessary for historians to know; but, the
difference between the active and passive voice was essential.

However, what Toynbee could not appreciate, writing the above in the
mid twenty-century, was the seemingly insignificant ripples developing
in some universities that by the 1960's would turn into an
historograhic title wave. Benson, Hays, Bogue, Aydelotte, Fogel,
Kousser, etc, burst onto the historiographic scene, seeking to meld
history with the social sciences and giving rise to the Social Science
History movement. The documents of the period clearly indicate the
profound effect they had on, if nothing else, American historiography.
Narrative historians, clearly on the defensive and “aroused from
their dogmatic slumber” (Kant), engaged in spirited debates
about the nature of the “historian's craft” (Bloch).
For a time it seemed that social science historians would
revolutionize historiography and take back the many areas cede to the
social scientist over the previous 200 years. The movement
consolidated: an association was formed (www.ssha.org), a journal
published, conferences held, and Robert Fogel won a noble prized for
his work in economic history. However, their success proved to be
ephemeral.

Documents clearly indicate that by the 1990's the Social Science
History tide had ebbed. The narrative prevailed as the principle
historiographic model and scientific minded history students could
once again be seen “sleeping before the chairs of virtue”
(Nietzsche). For example, in 1999 the Social Science History
Association dedicated an issue of its journal to answering the
question: “What is Social Science History?” In it, Paula
Baker wrote: “…the never especially clear relationship
between the social sciences and history has grown even more
muddy…The question, then, is what kinds of work fall under the
heading ‘social science history.’ Answers…go to the
meaning of ‘science’ and ‘social
science’.” Significantly, Ms. Baker did not think the
“meaning of history” had anything to do with answering the
question “What is Social Science History.” To my mind,
therein lies the problem. Nowhere in that journal is there any
indication that scientific minded historians need to recognize what
Toynbee saw, and revisit history's eighteenth-century metaphysical
assumptions about the nature of social reality and what constitutes
knowledge of that reality. History cannot be made scientific by
simply hitching a ride on the social science train. Ultimately
history is the queen of the social sciences; for, without history
there can be no social science. But, without philosophy, history is
just a story.